Half Full, Half Empty
by Luna the Zekrom
Summary: Aerith reflects on her lingering feelings for Zack and remembers how he helped her overcome her fear of the sky.


Crickets hummed and a campfire crackled as a small young woman stayed awake to keep watch for monsters and similar dangers.

Aerith sat cross-legged a short distance away from the group's campsite, alone beneath the starry atmosphere. She gazed up at the many constellations shimmering against the velvet-black sky for a long moment before closing her eyes and breathing in the wild scent of the night air. It smelled like freedom. And here, more than anywhere else, she could hear the voice of the planet whispering to her.

She was worlds away from Midgar, the only place she had ever called home, but the thought of it being so distant didn't frighten her the way it once would have. She had feared the sky too once, seen its empty blue depths in her nightmares and felt herself fall into them as if it were beneath her rather than above her.

She had spent her whole life hiding from it beneath the plate of Sector 5, where the quiet darkness and limiting pressure that everyone else felt stifled by served as her shield from the terrifyingly open vastness above. Her world underneath the plate was just big enough, and more importantly, sheltered.

Then a young man had fallen into it, punching through the roof of the church so that the air of the slums mingled with the air of the sky. And while Aerith had stood frozen at first, staring up at the blankness torn open above her and waiting to fall into it, she had in time come to realize that the sky would not take her and that the man who had ripped a hole in her world might be the one to set her free from it.

Zack's eyes had been infused with the same vivid blue color as the sky, but with none of its dangerous emptiness. His gaze had been full of mischief and joy whenever he looked at her, a playful smile on his face. The idea that someone so breathtakingly handsome could also be so kind had seemed unreal to her at first, but she had quickly learned that every emotion was written clearly all over his sweet face.

It was getting to know Zack and realizing that he, a member of SOLDIER—the most dangerous kind of person of all—was no threat to her which finally made her start to believe that maybe, just maybe, the sky wasn't one either.

He had helped her face her fear, climbing with her to the top of the church and sitting on what was left of the roof. Aerith had been paralyzed when she'd lifted her eyes to the seemingly endless expanse of blue, feeling as if she would drown in it, but Zack had held her hand and murmured to her that she would be all right, and slowly the fear which had overwhelmed her began to ebb away.

They had intended to stay for only a short while, but they had proceeded to spend the whole day up there together, watching first the lazily drifting clouds carried by the wind, then the sunset, and then even the constellations appearing. They lay together on their backs, feeling the breeze play with their hair as they looked up and pointed out the various shapes they saw formed by the clouds and the stars. Aerith had rested her head on Zack's shoulder, feeling safe as long as she was with him.

She had wondered before then why the sky was called the heavens, as if there was something beautiful and magnificent in what she saw only as deathly frightening. After that night, when she and Zack had fallen asleep side by side beneath the stars, Aerith thought she was finally beginning to understand.

Now she spent every day traveling beneath the open sky. She didn't even notice it much anymore, but every once in a while, she would look up and remember how she had gazed deep into mako-blue eyes and lain beside a SOLDIER and felt safe.

She'd hoped that, with the whole world open to her, she might have found Zack somewhere in it along her travels. But it seemed he was nowhere, lost completely even to his parents. Aerith couldn't begin to guess where he could have gone… or why.

Could the truth be that he had never really loved her at all?

As she remembered the contentment of being with him, she couldn't believe that it might have all been just a pretty lie. But her traitorous mind whispered that she had been blinded by her feelings, that it was impossible to tell what had been real without seeing him face to face again. And she was starting to believe that would never happen. She might live for years and years and never see him again, having never known that the most recent time they had seen each other would be the last.

Where had he gone? Had he consciously decided that he was never coming back, or had he simply moved on in the time he had been away?

He had promised her that he would come back. Despite his distraction when he had talked to her on the phone that final time, she had believed him. Until then, he had always kept his promises.

But as days turned to weeks and weeks to months and months to years, she had been forced to see the truth. Zack hadn't kept this promise. And as time slowly dragged on and she left falsely cheery messages on his cell phone's voicemail teasing him about how late he was and she wrote letter after letter with increasing desperation and never got any response, she started to realize that maybe he had never really intended to.

Maybe he had found another girl to fall in love with, who didn't have irrational fears, who could walk with him in the sunlight without a care in the world, who didn't hear the wind calling her. Aerith sometimes wondered if that was for the best, if there was someone else who would boost him up where she might have been holding him back. But part of her felt stubbornly that there was no one better for Zack than herself. She remembered holding him in her arms as he cried, heartbroken over his mentor's death, and remembered how she had held his hand and murmured to him that he would be all right. She had seen him at his worst and didn't think any less of him. A bond forged by grief shouldn't, _couldn't_ be broken this easily.

But it was starting to look like it could and it had.

Zack was gone and he wasn't coming back.

Sometimes Aerith hated him for the pain he had caused her when he had left Midgar, leaving her all alone without telling her why. On those days she refused to look up at the sky, refused to see the vibrant blue that always reminded her of his eyes or the sprinkling of stars that reminded her of how it had felt to fall asleep and wake up beside him.

Still, despite the conflicting emotions she felt toward him, Zack had given her a gift. The whole world was hers to explore now that her fear of the endless blue above her had gone. There was nothing holding her back anymore. And even though Zack had left a hole in her heart the way he had left a hole in the roof of her church, her new world was still a beautiful place even without him in it.

Now, beneath the gently twinkling stars, Aerith let out a shaky breath, trying not to cry. Zack had been gone for years. Now was not the time to cry over him.

She wasn't alone anymore, she reminded herself. She had Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, Red XIII, Cait Sith, Cid, Yuffie, and Vincent, her beloved traveling companions. How much longer their journey together would go on, she didn't know, nor could she foresee any of the dangers that still lay ahead of them. There would be obstacles to face, battles to fight, chances to take—risks that they'd never imagined.

But the one thing she knew for certain was that she wasn't afraid anymore.

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 **AN: This was my first time writing FFVII fan-fiction, so I hope I was able to do the characters justice! I'd love to get some feedback, about characterization and/or anything else, really. Constructive criticism is always appreciated!**

 **Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this story.**


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